Killing Time
by jackdawg
Summary: Vincent's back on Mars, running from Earth memories. For specific warnings, scroll down past the 'END'. 1993 run; spoiler of last ep.


Killing Time 

The newest bar girl closed in on one of all the males drinking slowly along the desk. His white fur beamed through the dusty gloom. Even in the dim lights of the cave the scars in his face were clear to see. Probably a fighter of the war. One of those few who survived against enemy force and their own recall. The last was what they usually silenced in here.

"Want some company, stranger?" she said with her softest voice, leaning in beside him.

"No."

"You sure? Gonna be a long, lonely night. You look like the kind who could give a girl some warmth."

He put his glass down.

"Thanks, sweetheart. But no thanks."

"Your loss." Knowing a real rejection from just playing hard-to-get, she left him sitting there.

"I should've told you about him," one of the older girls comforted her as she joined them to lick her wounds. "He's been here for months and never said yes to a date, even with an unprofessional chick."

"Maybe he's in the wrong street?…"

"No, I think he really wants to be lonely. Well, get used to weird people, they aren't exactly rare around here."

When the music ran out and the dancing crowd dropped off, the girls left the stage and the bartender dismissed the remaining guests, the white mouse left among the last unsteady customers. In the lot of bikes outside in the stone-laid back street, a race machine beeped when it caught his arrival. As he mounted it, a display on the panel flashed to indicate a missed call. He knew who it would be but pushed the replay button anyway. A soft note marked the recorded message.

"We're gonna be in Brimstone next week. If you're in the area… Give us a call. We wanna talk to ya, Vincent." The sandy voice paused. "We just wanna know you're all right, bro."

Looking down closing his eyes, he shook his head and sent a reply.

"I'm fine."

He shut the com down and revved the engines, then let the bike go slow and take over steering since his view was too hazy.

The single room apartment had a short range of furniture, a mini-sized cooler that was unplugged and a few articles of person straying round. A set of tools occupying one corner, shiny and well kept in the otherwise dominant disarray. Cans of non-and alcoholic drinks littered the floor and next to the worn-down couch a few boxers and socks were tossed in a heap. Over the armchair and back lay two T-shirts and an extra pair of jeans like the ones he wore. The old cushions barked a protest when he crashed down on them and switched the tube on to find a race. The TV only showed four channels and there wasn't much on them, but he didn't care a lot what he watched anyway. After four heats he zapped the screen and turned over to sleep through another day.

Getting up as the night fell, he failed to find an unopened bottle or can, grabbed a T-shirt and went down the stairs after securing his bandoleers over it. Riding into town without paying attention to the fact he had no messages, he took the same route as he had all month.

* * *

The bar's lighting pierced as little of its dusty, smoky air as always, its seats worn by the people who always wore them, whose actual reception of their surroundings were as always obscured by mists too thick for sheer lamps to cut through.

Knowing herself to be the joint's main attraction in double meanings, the singer dared to take chances in her choice of act. Her version of "I can't stop loving you" also had gone some way from Don Gibson's country classic. But some nights you couldn't win. In the middle of the second verse one large brown mouse crawled up on the stage and yanked her mike away. Tripping and spitting he swung the mike around and bellowed on ever louder about how crappy the music was, until suddenly something stopped the mike behind him.

Turning around and focusing he found a scarred face's red eyes pinning his own. The white-furred male in jeans, biker boots and a pair of ammunition belts crossed over his chest was holding the mike chord in an iron grip.

"Get off her stage, citizen. Now," he fumed in a drunk but perfectly clear voice.

"Who's gonna make –"

Without answering, the white mouse punched the other in the face and pulled him off the stage with his tail. When he tried to climb back up, he was sent back down by a hard kick.

Then, the singer's defender stopped in his movements, like he suddenly recognized the off ramp he'd taken and abruptly skidded around to find the highway again. Handing her the microphone back without a word, he staggered down from the stage and walked past the heap on the floor. The last words before the bridge chased him out into the blue-red night.

_They say that time heals a broken heart _

_but time has stood still since we've been apart_

* * *

New night, same bar. He was getting into a routine. Routine's ain't right. But there was a streetrace coming up that'd pay for decent liquor and a barstool that didn't threaten to stake your ass. Whatever the point was. He did the same thing anyway, cheap booze or classy. Got drunk, woke up where he didn't remember falling asleep, having the same memories and never-wills to deal with, with his head being hammered apart by a hangover and his stomach turning inside out. And do it all over again since letting the old times sneak up was worse.

_Wonder if McCyber can feel happy 'bout what he got. Funny thing is, I really hope that. Then at least one of us..._

A challenging voice from behind called him out of his thoughts.

"Hey. You the guy who messed with our bro last night?"

Glancing to the side he saw the brown was back with company.

"If you mean I kicked his tail, yeah."

"We wanna have a little talk with you. Outside."

"Come back some other time. I'm drinkin'."

The large brown mouse swept the smaller white one's glass off the bar desk. The response was immediate but subtle as the white's face turned toward him.

"You pickin' a fight, sweetheart?"

"Damn sure I am."

"All _right_."

They barely had time to catch the glint in his eyes before his tail caught the first leg and hell broke loose.

* * *

"Got you good, didn't he," a calmly amused voice greeted the group of mice when they started to come back to their aching heads and bodies. "Lost your nuts and bolts?!" the army-clad girl sniggered, looking the awakening lot over from her perch by the bar desk. "That was one of the Biker Mice," she informed.

"So what? There are plenty o' biker mice in here." Eyes still closed, the large brown male rose and tried not to touch the large bump on his forehead where it had connected with the white one's.

"Not _any_ biker mice," the young mousette patiently smirked, rolling her eyes. "_The_ Biker Mice. The trio that busted the Plutarkians on Earth. The other two work for my squad leader. That scarface is a fuckin' war hero!" Nearly bursting with laughter, she gave them a thumbs-up. "Glad ya took him on though. Best entertainment I ever had in here." She raised a brief toast and spun on her stool to put the glass back, then jumped down and left them, tossing a coin over her shoulder. "Thanks for the show, boys," she said cheerfully.

Just the metal landing on his head made the hit mouse yelp in pain.

Back in his own block, his body roused by the fight, Vincent chuckled rough as he walked up the stairs to his apartment. Tempted to set out for another brawl to get involved in, he still left it at a thought. There was a race the next night and he wanted to have slept a day before then. Was a while since.

The day fled and the city streets opened to him once more. Only these times of action, of speed, of adrenaline, counted in the river of oblivion that the time after Earth made up.

The time after Charley.

The other bikers were a hundred feet behind and he was alone with the night. Reeling across the bridges against the traffic, he leaped over the walls around the construction sites. Past those grounds was the finishing line. Don't go under the speed limit or you're out. All attention on the changing route of the race and any followers, combatants or police.

One wrong move in an alley, he missed the turn by less than an inch. The stone ground and walls went black.

Waking up too soon. Not good plan. No way. Oouch.

"Hi there, honey. Time to come around?"

Quick onceover. Old habits are hard to break. Slim, shapely figure, bearing up worn jeans and top as good as it did that side-slit dress on stage. Nothing overdone, nothing forgotten. Sexy, but not tasteless. Beautiful woman - no pretty girl, no lady. Colors visible here in the light. Painful light… Black fur, flowing mahogany hair, bright red antennae, blue eyes. More than looks, temper and an own mind.

Good for her.

"Where's my bike?"

"And I'm Trigger. My pleasure. You beat up the meanest bunch in town and get to walk alive from it, then you try to kill yourself on your own wheels?" she asked with accusation of stupidity in her deep voice, watching the white-furred biker rise from her couch and wince when the acquired roadrashes and bruises announced themselves to him. "Do you have a death wish?"

"Maybe. Where's my bike?"

"Safe in my basement. So what could you be missing, thinking like that?" Her soft eyes and carriage clearly spoke what _she _meant he was lacking, even though the suggestion wasn't a physical one.

He sighed, marking, and his own raised eyes displayed just as clear: _Back off. Now. It's got nothing to do with you but I don't want what you're offering._

"What's the matter with you?! Can't you stand company unless you hit 'em down?!"

"Look, doll, I'm just not out for a girl." He turned and left, his motions oddly strengthless for someone that tone.

"You just had me worried, stranger. You left a _hard love_ song..."

"Drop it."

"Just sayin' maybe she wasn't the right girl for you."

He turned slightly toward her and it was like she'd found a door that someone forgot to lock.

"Yeah, she was. Man, she was."

"Yeah. So if she was so damned right, how come she ain't with ya?"

"I got her killed."

"Oh. Oh boy. That's… Sorry."

"Thanks for patchin' me up."

He took his gears and found her door.

* * *

"I'm fine."

Throttle closed his eyes as memories were rerun, summoned by the same brief rasping radio message as his own short sigh.

There was smoke, dying fire and stray bullets and laser beams. Things happening too fast for all of them. Vincent kneeling over Charlene Davidson's body. Charley-girl, their priceless help against the Plutarkians, their best friend on Earth, and the later of the two loves of Vincent's life. Harley was kidnapped by a psychopath leaving no trace, Charley died in his arms. And something in Vinnie shut down. He left them after that final battle, after telling Charley's ex-boyfriend and handing him the papers on her garage and other property. They weren't bequethed to anyone but he thought it right for some reason.

That day when he'd just dropped it on them…

"_Right. Seeya 'round, bros."_

_The startlement, the sensing of what was coming without the full comprehension of it._

"_You leavin'?... But..."_

"_Stinkfishes're down. We're through here."_

_His own confusion, the difficulty to grasp what the white mouse was saying. The three of them had stayed together for over a decade._

"_Vincent..."_

_Vinnie stuffing clothes and his own tools and some of Charley's into his saddlebags._

"_I'm goin' to Mars."_

_Modo's startled, worried look._

"_We are too, bro..."_

"_I need a little space, okay?"_

They parted once they reached Mars; Vinnie hadn't given them word for months. They knew his number, in case they would need his help, but he stayed solitaire.

Pulling himself out of the past, Throttle sent another call for the race bike, hoping that for once its rider would be around and take it.

* * *

When he got out to his bike outside the singer's appartment, the com-radio was indicating an ongoing call. He shut it off.

The crowd's cheers didn't even reach his mind, all of it fixed on the stone under his wheels and the passing buildings and obstacles. The opponents weren't worth checking on, his own injuries from the last race were more of a challenger than any of those double-breasted beginners, who had money enough to buy any bike they wanted but no sense in riding them. None of them could have ever tried to outrace a Sandraider or get their bikes in one piece through the decaying parts of the old canyons. Now, the course itself was the real combatant. His entire body was still screaming from the experience – and screaming to get back into the jaws that had bitten it, to dodge them this time, to break their teeth.

The race ran from the inner city out to the confusing pattern of half-finished roads and gateways in the outskirts, where some of the scaffolding it passed wasn't reliable to stand when you raced under it. Where he'd done that dumb crash. This time he knew of that spot, saw all the others. Blood racing in his veins, like his red bike through the streets and tunnels, he charged at the stone beast, dove right into its belly, slit it up from inside and felt every car, brick wall and construction set as he flew past them, his reflexes the only thing fast enough to match his own speed.

Having braked after the finish line, his bike pinging as her engines cooled off, he felt charged up - even though he was physically and mentally finished, he felt like he could take on anyone, like nothing could bring him down. Nowadays his entire reward in racing was that _risk of failing_. A sufficient number of people died during these road rallies. They had too much else on their minds. He never had anything on his mind now, didn't allow anything in there. The bike called out again and he didn't stop himself before he'd hit the answer button.

* * *

Throttle's heart jumped and he gave a sign to Modo and Stoker as he realized the line had been opened.

"Vincent?"

"Yeah," came the answer after a long silence.

"How.. Whatcha doin', bro?" Modo asked carefully, though he thought that from the hyped-up note in Vinnie's voice and his speeded breath, he could tell.

"Racin'."

That was more than he'd communicated for over two years.

"What race?" Modo asked on, but the answer was torn up by static and a beginning drizzle on the microphone. "What was that?"

"Ah," they could hear him shrug over the line, "It's in Brimstone. Goin' from the center to the edges. Had a piece of old town cave in right behind me," he added in the same lingering ecstacy that was the most probable reason they were talking at all.

"You payin' us a visit sometime in the future?" Throttle said softly.

No reply came for so long that they started to fear radio disturbance, then Modo broke the silence.

"You gonna stay around those wimps, or you gonna come over an' take me on?" he challenged friendly.

The hoped for reaction – a snort, a laugh, anything that would sign an ego – didn't come.

"Vinnie…" Modo started, holding down his despair, but Stoker broke him off.

"Look, punk! I don't know what you're playing, but you're acting like you're alone in the world! Taking the Brimstone BackBreaker! _Have you got a death wish_?!"

After a second of wait, Vinnie hung up on them.

Modo and Throttle looked at their older friend and informal leader. While Modo chose to do it quietly and with his spontaneous dismay, Throttle scowled at Stoker with anger raising his voice and peaking his words, making him nearly spit them.

"You two are damned alike!"

"I'm sorry!" Stoker yelled back, then pushed his voice down. "I lost it."

"And we lost Vincent." Throttle paced another circle, then whipped around to face Stoker again. "Fuck! What the Hell was that good for?" He didn't bother to suppress his emotion notably. "Couldn't let your lectures wait until he at least decided to come over here?!"

Modo just sighed and his shoulders fell together with his eye.

* * *

Except that Throttle hadn't talked to Stoker since that last call when Vinnie had slipped out of their hands, things went on as usual in Argyre. They went on like they had to. But the hopes raised by their bro's closeness during that brief contact made the black hole when it was broken so much deeper and more tangible.

Throttle and Modo didn't feel at home with being a duo even after two years, in fact they weren't. Parted from Vincent they still kept in constant touch, but didn't feel as a team other than when they were called in by the army to help bring down one or another remaining Plutarkian base. Trying in vain to reach Vincent, who didn't even return calls anymore, they realized it had been easier to feel whole without him if he'd died. This kind of loss was harder to deal with.

Open to the street, the doorway to the Freedomfighters biker club let in stray sounds of the ongoing nightlife further into the city. Throttle looked into the ice box and dug out a root beer. Mars had its decent brands nowadays, even if they didn't quite reach Boylan Bottleworks' standards. He liked that cane sugar tinge.

"His bike doesn't accept calls, we can't even trace her anymore. Like she was shut down. Why doesn't she… pick the messages up…?"

He wanted to take the question back. Not even have thought it. A large truck passed outside like a thunderstrike, shaking the floor slightly, and he wished it had come seconds earlier to drown his words out. There were a number of reasons for a bike not to take messages for its owner, but only one took up room in his mind. Only one. And he didn't want to think that possible, didn't want his mind to get logical right now. Most of all he wished Modo wouldn't answer it, so that the idea didn't settle. He just couldn't, wouldn't, picture Vinnie choosing to take that way out. Not even when he'd changed as much as he had.

Modo wasn't answering him either, turning an emptied can into shims, and his mind seemed to be elsewhere than his hands as his synthetic fingers worked. If it was were Throttle's was at, he kept it to himself. The slight clipping, grounding sound of metal through metal was painfully lonely.

"Hi, guys," a voice said from behind their backs.

Throttle spun round, dropping and catching his drink.

"Vincent?!"

Modo stepped up and grabbed his chair to stop it from falling.

"Vinnie!"

The white mouse leaning on the doorpost walked a few more steps in, looking at them in turn. Then his eyes fell, like they do when you want to stick around but just don't know how to advance. Unable to fake a smile to meet the greetings you've gotten.

Not walking easy in a world of happy faces.

"Hey," he replied with his gaze finding refuge on the table.

Stoker came up from the door, just taking off his helmet.

"Hello there, bro."

"Hey, chief," Vinnie replied after a moment, then stopped and looked hard at him. "You asked me if I had a death wish," he said in a very level voice. "I don't."

"Nice to hear." Stoker's smile was rather grim.

"We couldn't reach you," Throttle said slightly inquiring.

"Turned my com off, had to save up energy to get here."

They took that explanation for what it was, that he had some reason not to accept calls and that he understood it made them worry. Gathering around the stone table, still only the four of them, they had a round of hot dogs set up. Vinnie wasn't responding to any of the usual, the old, lines that would have gotten him kidding around and laughing in the past. It was like some vital cords were cut, and his own talking was – especially compared to his old self – constantly subdued. But he was there, and he was talking to them.

"So what you been doin'?" he asked.

"Well," Modo laughed and looked over at Throttle, "Nothin' so exitin'. I been workin' construction sites... An' we've kicked in when Carbine-ma'am gives a ring."

"Yeah, we've got our day-to-day meal tickets, but the lady sets up our real cash chances," Throttle smirked. "We've been helpin' the army out with some areas."

"You still seein' her?"

"Same as always."

"What about you, big guy? Your mom get you married yet?"

"Nah. She's tryin' to pair me up with some daughter of a friend o' hers, but…" Modo's lop-sided smirk and frown inclined he wasn't too happy about the idea.

"Say, Vincent," Throttle cut in, "What happened to your mask?"

The white mouse took another hot dog, like moving off a brief emotion or the lack of one.

"Keeps my cooling system together."

After a little more catching up, they seemed to run out of lines and Vincent seemed to be running out of the little energy that had gotten him to join them again. Stoker, standing, had studied his younger bro for a while. Now he stepped up to Vinnie's slumped shape.

"Hey, punk. Could I have a word with you?" He said without a hint of ribbing or joking in his grave voice, but quite an urgent heaviness. "For old rivalry's sake."

Vinnie shrugged and followed him out to the terrace in the back yard.

"You don't have a death wish… But you don't seem too eager to live either."

"Look, don't start off the _she would've wanted you to_ speech," Vinnie wearily cut off, and almost groaned. "Throttle went over that on Earth already..."

"That's a load of crap. You can't spend your life guessing what she wanted, you gotta go for what you want, and when you don't want anything, that's not that easy." Stoker paused, then took an almost entirely new track. "When I started to understand that we probably wouldn't find Harley… Every time I let it get to me that I'd never see her again… I was going crazy. I thought I'd never be able to feel good about anything again, I thought I'd never feel_ anything_ about anything. I didn't even want to." He looked down, brow furrowing. "I'm not dumber than knowing what you felt for Harley. And I wasn't blind when I started grieving her, like you seemed to be - I saw when it started hitting you that she was gone…" He subconsciously checked that he still had Vincent with him as he sought for the threads. "Bet you couldn't think of yourself laughing again. Bet you thought you'd never be able to love another woman the way you loved her... Until you met that Charley girl."

While he tried to reply and failed, Vincent's eyes slowly were flooded, like Stoker's simple words had unlocked the dams he'd built for all the time he'd been running.

Stoker reached out and pulled the young mouse close. Screwing his eyes shut, Vinnie sobbed as warm tears matted the fur on his cheeks and trickled down the scars in his face. All the lead in his feet, all the emptiness in his heart seemed to be let loose on him while he leaned on his old rival and mentor. Stoker sighed heavily.

"Don't worry, kid. It'll get better. I'm tellin' you 'cause I know it doesn't feel that way. But it will. You've got my word for it."

In the end Vinnie drew his breath and stepped back, rubbing off his eyes briefly.

"Thanks, coach," he said very quietly.

"Don't mention it, Vincent," Stoker replied in the same soft voice.

"How'd ya know o' the triple B?…"

"I used to run it, way back. But I quit."

"Yeah? How come?" He doubted it was because Stoker felt he wasn't good enough.

"I saw it kill two of my best friends. After that it didn't have the same tug on me."

* * *

Throttle and Modo turned their heads as Vinnie and Stoker came back inside. While the old mouse slipped out, the two stood still and looked at their returned companion for a moment, he looked back. Throttle smiled.

"It's real good to have you back, Vincent."

"Yeah," Modo nodded. "Though I gotta admit, it's been nice an' quiet around," he rumbled, trying for some spite.

Vinnie didn't even smirk or comment. He hugged first Modo, then Throttle.

"I've missed you bros."

Having wept only minutes ago, the new emotions sent a pair of new tears down his cheeks. He just wiped them facing slightly down, without any attempt of hiding them. The other two bikers smiled sadly at the sight, feeling their own eyes burn from the lumps they were swallowing, and Modo lay a hand on Vinnie's back while clearing his throat.

"You up for some cruisin'?" He thumbed to the wall, in the direction of the city's larger streets.

"Yeah." Vinnie followed them out, to his bike waiting next to theirs.

"Then let's ride," Throttle said in a low voice, giving his 'lady' a soft race of the engine.

They were silent all the way. The blue Martian night overhead, bleached by the lights of the cave skyscrapers, Vinnie watched the streets flash by and heard the sound of Throttle's softail and Modo's chopper blend with his own bike's. Even if he didn't feel that the hole inside him would ever go away, at least he knew he didn't want to be alone with it any longer.

END

**********

Specific warnings

character death: Charlene Davidson.


End file.
